Glen or Glenda (1953)

Glen or Glenda? (1953)

October 24, 2004

VHS, Somerville, MA

** / ****

By Scott Muoio

You can always be certain that you’re in for a doozy of flick when a movie starts without the slightest hint of an opening title credit. The title drop technique, a little bit of cinematic wizardry from the 1950s, was used to shoehorn a movie into any neighborhood demographic by simply titling the film whatever the distributor thought the gullible paying audience might want to watch. Print up the necessary posters, splice in the appropriate title sequence and voila: a perfect example of false advertising at its best. So it is with Glen or Glenda, I Changed My Sex, The Transvestite, or whatever the infamous Ed Wood biographical expose on transvestitism happens to be masquerading as when you pop it into the VHS. And like nearly every one of those ‘50s phonies whose garrulous titles were 1,000 times more entertaining than the celluloid meat and potatoes that played under the slogan, Glen or Glenda is a schmaltzy ridiculous affair of the highest order. Strap yourself in, throw logic out the window, and prepare to be stupefied as we descend into the weird world or Mister Edward D. Wood, Jr.

The legend goes that Glen or Glenda was supposed to be a film about the relatively new surgical procedure of the ‘50s that could turn a man into a woman. A snip snip here and a snip snip there, throw a few hormone supplements into the mix, and presto: Ray becomes Rachel. At the time, the sex change operation was highly controversial and few details were known by the public. That veil of the unknown opened the doors for exploitation mongers to capture the unwashed masses’ attention by preying on their curiosity and ignorance. Enter Ed Wood, the shameless self-promoter and prolific writer of all that is strange and personal, to take it one step weirder by turning the whole shebang into a vanity project about his own transvestitism. Only Wood could be so bold, so brazen, and so oblivious to turn the fascinating story of the world’s first sex change patient, Christine Jorgenson, into his own personal ode to cashmere sweaters and his love for wearing women’s undergarments. My, oh my!

The on screen product of Wood’s demented mind, Glen or Glenda is surprisingly tepid for its subject matter though certainly as head scratching as anything Wood has ever done. Over the course of Glen or Glenda’s 60 minute run-time we are treated to a variety of phony surgery footage, some vague talk of transsexual procedures, but mostly a whole lot of Ed, himself, walking down the street in drag, staring lustily at women’s undergarments in store windows, and hopelessly hiding his “other life” from real life girlfriend and monotone actress Dolores Fuller. Bela Lugosi appears from time to time throwing out bizarre warnings and prognostications (“pull ze strings, pull ze strings!”) while the devil (yes, the devil!) points, cackles, and mocks poor confused Ed. Add to that several shots of random fingers and faces flashing on the screen to illustrate the turmoil going on in the mind of the closeted transvestite and you’ve got the perfect movie to initially pique one’s interest and then subsequently cure the worst case of insomnia.

The real beauty in a film like Glen or Glenda is how personal the whole experience seems. Part documentary, part cautionary warning, and completely serious in tone and intent, it’s impossible not to get giddy when one comes to realize how sincere everyone involved in the project seems to be. From Ed, himself, as the closeted transvestite, to Bela the raving omniscient mad scientist, from Dolores the heartbroken yet finally forgiving fiancé, to Lyle Talbot and Timothy Farrell as the investigator and psychologist, respectively who gravely consider the psyche of an individual who challenges societal norms, we are treated to a cast stuck in a strange purgatory somewhere between real life and the movies. It’s breathtaking to watch all involved take things stone serious when the sets are absurd, the acting absurd, and the dialogue so bizarre. But then again, how could it be any better for us, those in pursuit of uncanny cinematic oddness?

In taking the topic so seriously, Glen or Glenda is funny because it is silly. It is not mean-spirited, does not judge unfairly (though the “go native” clip may be the funniest yet most politically incorrect part of the whole affair), and it doesn’t try to shove a certain way of life down anyone’s throat even as it cautiously celebrates it. Instead, Glen or Glenda merely explains that some men enjoy dressing in women’s pretty things.

It’s true, transvestitism is never going away and society may be all the better for it. And compared to other so-called “delinquencies,” are there any more absurd and less harmful than transvestitism? I think not. Unknowingly, Ed Wood captured that balance of harmless absurdity to perfection, and in Glen or Glenda, The Transvestite, or whatever title this Woodian opus is parading as this decade, we can most certainly be assured that this particular cinematic monstrosity is a wunderkind without compare.